1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to oil and gas exploration and production. More particularly, the invention relates to systems and methods for analysis of oil and gas exploration and production data.
2. State of the Art
Analysis of oil exploration and production data often requires complex geoscientific software. Most of the software is designed to analyze different types of data which are obtained through the use of different kinds of well logging and/or measurement tools. The types of data analyzed include pressure, temperature, conductance, resistivity, voltage, current, seismic data, etc. In general these data are analyzed using complex algorithms to produce a map or an image of the formation surrounding a well. The map/image is then analyzed using other complex algorithms in order to determine the geophysical properties of the formation, all for the purpose of locating and extracting hydrocarbons.
The vast majority of today""s geoscientific software applications are designed to run on expensive Unix-based workstations. These workstations are affordable only to major oil companies, many of which have also paid high prices to have custom proprietary software written for their use alone. The market segment for independent and small producers is still largely ignored by major software/hardware vendors and these producers lack the resources to create custom proprietary software.
In addition, the vast majority of today""s geoscientific software applications are unable to share data easily with other applications. The reality of modern oil exploration, however, demands that different professionals located in different parts of the world collaborate to analyze a remote oilfield. For example, an interpretation physicist may be located at an oilfield in, e.g. West Africa. However, the structural geologist who understands the complex faulting in this area might be located at a research center in Houston, Tex. The petrophysicist, who understands the rock types encountered in a recent well in the area, might be located in Aberdeen, Scotland. These three specialists represent part of the xe2x80x9cAsset Teamxe2x80x9d for this project, each of whom needs to collaborate with the other in order to interpret the oilfield.
The number of steps involved in discovering, developing, and producing an oilfield (as used herein, xe2x80x9coilfieldxe2x80x9d includes oil and/or gas fields) is huge, and can involve hundreds of professionals working closely together for many years. Not only are these professionals typically distributed across the world (as discussed above), they are also distributed in tune. The seismic interpreter will pass the results of his work to the geologist, who will in turn pass his results to a reservoir engineer, and so on. At any point in this workflow, one of the professionals might have to revise his/her interpretation of the model of the oilfield. The distributed and iterative nature of this workflow across users, space, and time poses many challenges, particularly in view of the shortcomings of the software tools utilized by these professionals.
Geologists, geophysicists, geoscientists, petrophysicists, and reservoir engineers spend a significant portion of their time and effort managing the details of uploading and downloading data from various applications, translating data from one application to another, and keeping track of multiple models of an oilfield. The mechanics of using the software hinders the workflow. Moreover, the results from one application may not collaborate with a downstream application because the underlying modeling concepts may be completely different.
The Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation (POSC) was formed in 1990 to address some of these concerns. POSC is an international not-for-profit membership corporation which provides open specifications for information modeling, information management, and data and application integration. While this is a step in the right direction, many of the specifications utilize a xe2x80x9clowest common denominatorxe2x80x9d approach.
The oil and gas industry has a huge software investment in large and expensive systems from multiple vendors. The total cost of ownership (TCO) for these systems is very high. Many of these specialty applications (e.g. reservoir simulators) are used infrequently, but still have a very high TCO due to high licensing and support costs.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an oilfield data analysis system which overcomes the disadvantages of the systems presently utilized.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a geoscientific software system which facilitates workflow among multiple professionals accessing the same data from different locations and at different times.
It is another object of the invention to provide a geoscientific software system which facilitates the interchange of data among multiple applications.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a geoscientific software system which reduces the total cost of ownership of various applications and thereby makes the applications available to a broader market.
In accord with these objects which will be discussed in detail below, the oilfield data analysis system of the present invention includes software based on a four tier model which includes a xe2x80x9cshared earth modelxe2x80x9d and a federation of xe2x80x9cdirectory servicesxe2x80x9d. The first tier is a universal graphical user interface (GUI) which can operate on any inexpensive computer as well as on an expensive workstation, i.e. a xe2x80x9cweb browserxe2x80x9d. The GUI may be enhanced with JAVA applets which are embedded in web pages. The second tier is an application server (or servers) which is (are) coupled to users via the worldwide web and which serve(s) geoscientific software applications. The third tier is a geometric modelling system where geometric data is stored and processed. The third tier enables applications to access and interpret structural information about the earth""s subsurface. The third tier embodies the xe2x80x9cshared earth modelxe2x80x9d. The fourth tier is a relational database management system where non-geometric data is stored. According to the invention, there can be (and preferably are) multiple instances of each tier. Communication of data between different tiers is accomplished via XML (Extensible Markup Language) data exchange. According to a presently preferred embodiment, the geoscience applications served by the second tier are written as JAVA servlets and applications can communicate with each other without human direction by registering requests with xe2x80x9cdirectory servicesxe2x80x9d. Applications interested in certain types of data xe2x80x9clistenxe2x80x9d for xe2x80x9cdata eventsxe2x80x9d being registered with directory services. Legacy applications (FORTRAN, C, C++, etc.) are supported via XML interfaces. The cost of utilizing an application can be based on a time-rental billing operation which is carried out automatically via directory services. Thus, a user can pay a relatively small fee for the limited time use of an application rather than the large cost of owning the application.
The oilfield analysis system operates as follows. Data from an oilfield is uploaded to the third tier. The data is automatically pre-processed to create the first version of the shared earth model. Professionals access a menu of applications via the worldwide web and choose a shared earth model to edit (embellish via further analysis). The system automatically determines which applications are compatible with the chosen model, determines whether the user has permission to edit this model, and determines whether the user has permission to use the application chosen. After the model has been altered, it is compared to any previous versions to determine consistency. If it is consistent with a previous version, it is saved, replacing the previous version. If it is not consistent, it is saved as an alternate interpretation. After it is saved, an edit event is registered in directory services. If the user has a time billing contract for the application, a billing event is also registered with directory services. Other interested applications/users have previously registered to listen for such events and they are automatically notified by directory services. This type of process proceeds from one professional to another using different applications and additional data, such as production data, with models becoming more and more developed. The system automatically determines compatibility of data, performs translations where necessary, and keeps track of the latest shared earth model(s). The users need not concern themselves with the housekeeping aspects of workflow. In addition, a broader range of applications is made available to users and the total cost of ownership of applications is minimized since it is not necessary to own an application to use it.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reference to the detailed description taken in conjunction with the provided figures.